Steve Applebaum

Steve Applebaum was a nerd.  He knew it.  He didn’t take pride in it.  But it paid well.  He was so glad his criminal record from when he was sixteen had been expunged.  However, it meant being on the straight and narrow until he turned eighteen. Like he did anything with the financial information he hacked into.  It was just a game, a challenge.  Unfortunately, the judge on the case had just suffered through identity theft.  Steve’s lawyer tried to get the judge to recuse himself, but no such luck.  It took Steve’s therapist and tearful parents to get him that two-year probation and two hundred hours of community service.  He spent them working in a nursing home, helping old people get their finances in order—and recognizing fraud when he saw it, which was often.

He hoped never to get old, at least that old when he didn’t have all his marbles.  If it wasn’t relatives defrauding the old, then it was nursing care, or doctors’ billings.  Some of those old people were so trusting.  When he was younger, he remembered hearing about an indigenous tribe in Alaska that put its old on an ice floe and let them float away.  Not a bad idea.  Except with global warning, there would be no ice left.  Except in the refrigerator.

But all that was in his past.  Right now, here he was in DC, working international security.  Yeah, still hacking.  But making mid-range six figures for it.  He tried to get out every day, so he didn’t develop prison pallor from sitting in front of the computer for so many hours.  He also tried to make personal connections, like with real people.  It was hard because, well, he really wasn’t a people person.  Not that he had any fetishes like plastic dolls.  But somehow women found him—weird.  Communication with anything but a screen had always been hard for him.

The photo he had used for this new dating site, his umpteenth effort, was professionally taken.  His glasses were missing and his hair was groomed. His mother called it Einstein hair.  She was fond of him, but sometimes expressed the wish he’d be more like his two brothers.  Normal.  This new dating site was extra cautious, texts came through them, no cell phone numbers unless the clients decided to have more than one first meeting.  Less chance of stalkers.  Not that Steve couldn’t find a number had he wanted to.  But rejection takes its toll.  Tonight he’d try not to look defeated—to begin with.

Here he was at Mario’s, waiting for his date, wearing his signature infinity tie.  Not that he was expecting much.  He was used to being spotted and then rejected from across a crowded, smokey room, if he wanted to be Forties romantic about it.  He looked at it this way, if they didn’t even want to sit down and talk to him, then they probably weren’t worth it anyway.

Oh—here this one was, carrying a pink clutch, as an identifying sign.  He tried to pretend he hadn’t seen her, in case she was still sizing him up and found him wanting.  One time he had risen to greet his “date” with a smile and a wave of his hand, only to have her turn and rush out of the restaurant.  Women can be so cruel.  Well, so can life, he thought philosophically.

This one was, well, what his mother used to call “cute as a button.”  Not that he had a thing about his mother.  His “date” had what he would size up as a cheerleader’s figure, with a complexion that probably freckled in the summer.  Her hair was blond with highlights that shone in the dim Mario’s lights.  Dress:  Pants suit, so nothing sexy.  A date that would be all business, he thought.

Oh, good.  She hadn’t rejected him out of hand.  Dare he stand as she made her way toward his table?  But then would she—  Oh hell, all five foot ten of him rose, he plastered a tentative smile on his face.  There she was, standing across from him at their small table for two.  “Hi.  Uh.  Eden?”

“Steve Applebaum.  Infinity tie.  Looking nothing like his photo?” Eden questioned.

Eee—Yikes!  “Busted,”he said with a nervous smile.

“Oh, well, what else do I have to do?” Eden ungraciously put it, placing her pink clutch down on the table and her fanny on the chair across from him.  She picked up the menu, wondering what was the cheapest dish she could order.  Even the appetizers were expensive.  Maybe just garlic bread?

The waitress came over.  “Water,” Eden said.  “Tap.”

Steve had a feeling he wasn’t going to be able to rescue this evening.  “Couldn’t I persuade you to share a nice pinot noir with me?”

“Do they have anything under ten dollars a glass?”

“I’m paying.”

“Oh.  By all means, then.”

He ordered.  A bottle.  Then informed her it was a New Zealand pinot noir.  “I don’t know if it’s the best, but I have a fondness for the south island, ever since I visited there.”

She almost rolled her eyes.  “Oh.  Let me guess.  You’re a Tolkien fan.”

Steve didn’t know if she was going to need the wine, but he certainly was.  Miss Negativity over there was given him a sour stomach.  “More C. S. Lewis, although I did see Peter Jackson’s interpretation of the novels.  What did you read when you were a child?  Aside from Black Beauty.”

“I never read ‘Black Beauty.’  ‘Harry Potter,’ of course.  And I loved fairy tales.  Cinderella was my favorite of all time.  The wicked step-mother.  Something I can definitely relate to.”

“Oh.  Sorry.”  Maybe that was the explanation for her personality, which he found wanting.  “She scarred you for life?”

“Only the last two years.  But I keep losing my glass slipper.  So far no one has found it and come searching for me.”

He laughed.  She didn’t.  “Oh.  I thought that was a joke.”

Sighing, Eden thought, let the game begin.  She asked, “So what do you do, Steve Applebaum, aside from travel to New Zealand and wear some god-awful tie.”

Hold back the dawn, Steve, he told himself.  “I work in security.”

Great, Eden thought.  A security guard.  Just her luck.

“As an analyst, that sort of thing.  I do a lot of traveling to make sure systems aren’t being corrupted, even though actually most of the work can be done right from here.  But companies—and countries—like their hands held.”

Now interested, Eden leaned forward.  “You’re that sort of security?  Like seeing if someone’s been hacked or some company is about to be held for ransom?”

“Well—more involved.  Let’s just say it’s a lot of computer time.  And what do you do, Miss Eden?”

“Eden’s my first name.”

“I know.  I thought—  I was just trying to be playful.”

“Really?”

Maybe they could have one glass and he could take the rest of the bottle home, Steve thought.  Why try?

“Sorry,” Eden said.  She sighed and collapsed into her uncomfortable wooden chair.  “My life’s been pretty much shit lately.  We’re doing a ceramics exhibit, and one of our featured potters claimed we broke her vase, which is nonsense.  She just wants the insurance payoff from us.  So I spent the afternoon hearing her weeping—so fake—and listening to my boss berate me because of our liability.  Everyone has a racket.  I guess in your business, you see it all the time.”

At least it was something of an apology, Steve thought.   “Have some wine.  Forget about work.  Tell me about your wicked step-mother instead.  I also love fairy tales.”

Eden pondered what to say.  If she should say it.  And not come across as a total whiny bitch, as she had so aptly put it to her brother.  “My father—  Well, okay, so there was this sales rep named, as you might expect, Heidi—get that vision in your head and keep it there—who made a play for my father.  God knows why.  He was an old man.  But suddenly, it’s love—yeah, sure.  He divorces my mother, marries the yodeler, a few months later, dead, in flagrante delicto.  Trussed up like a chicken.  Like, at that age, should he even be having sex?  And of course we are left high and dry financially, as Heidi inherited Dad’s hefty portfolio.  Almost.  Except she didn’t and we didn’t get the mere pittance he decided to leave his children—because—da da—Dad invested with a friend who was touting Allgate Realty, which turns out to be a money laundering operation, leaving us all in the lurch.  Don’t mind about Heidi because I suspect she murdered my father for the money.  But I could have done with the measly twenty thousand I was to get.  And that’s the story of my life.  No happy endings to this tale.”

Swirling his wine, Steve frowned.  Two interesting points here to ponder.  Someone murdering her father and the money-laundering scheme.  Just the sort of thing he liked to delve into.  He’d start with the first.  “What makes you think Heidi killed your father?”

“So soon after their marriage and kinky sex?”

“Maybe that was part of Heidi’s attraction.  Also, oldest story in the fairy tale book, man takes a new wife, leaves children out in the cold.  Only now it’s done via divorce.”

“You’re not being very sympathetic.”

“I’m trying to analyze the situation.  That’s what I do.”

The waitress came.  Steve ordered the veal marsala, and, after assuring her he was paying, Eden had the filet mignon.

When the waitress left, Eden continued with, “Don’t you think it’s rather suspicious that my father died so soon after his marriage?  He was only in his sixties.”

“First you say he’s too old, now you say he’s not too old.”  Steve shrugged.  “Could he have had a heart condition?”

“He was a cardiologist,” Eden threw back at him.  “And why did Heidi zero in on him, when her whole job was marketing drugs to hundreds of doctors?”

“Maybe he made himself available.”

“But my mom—she had no idea.  The whole think stinks. Something rotten was going on.  I think Heidi’s a black widow and has done this before, but my brother—the lawyer—said to keep my mouth shut or I could be sued.  So—I suffer in silence.”

Steve smiled at that one, then leaned back as their food was being delivered.  “Wow,” Eden said.  “I can take half of this home.”

“What’s the full name of Heidi?  I can check her out, if you like.”

“I can’t pay you.”

“I gathered that.”

Eden gave him an appraising look.  This Steve Applebaum might not be bad if he got difference glasses, had his hair professionally styled, and bought a new wardrobe.  “Her name as far as we know is Heidi Fairfax Franklin.  Franklin’s the new last name.”  She paused.  “You want a pen to write that down.”

He shook his head.  “Don’t need it.  How’s the steak?”

“Seared.”

“Good for reheating then.”

Eden thought for a minute that he was probably making fun of her, but she let it go, as he was paying.  Then he politely asked her more about her work and she was off, as communications might not be his thing but it was definitely hers.  At least this guy listened and didn’t try to impress her.  As if he could.  And when the bill came, he threw down a Visa Infinite card. Yippee.

Outside the restaurant, she was pleased to see he didn’t suggest a continuation of the evening but was looking to hail her a cab, even though she could have easily taken the Metro.  “Are you seriously going to look into this Heidi situation?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Then you’ll probably need my number to tell me what you’ve found out.”

He waved that away.  “Don’t worry.  I’ll have no trouble finding it.”

Okay, a bit scary, Eden thought, as she slid into the taxi to take her back to her four-roommate apartment. With the gerbil.  She leaned out to say, “Thank you.  For the meal—and everything.  It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be when I first saw you.”  She could only hope he appreciated the compliment.